Proposals in Chancellor George Osborne's autumn statement mean big changes in further education, at a time when the sector is already dealing with significant and complicated reforms. But this autumn statement moves the focus away from colleges and training providers and on to businesses and their responsibilities to our nation's young people and apprentices.
Probably the most significant proposal announced in the autumn statement was to make it cheaper for businesses to employ young people. From 2015, businesses won't have to pay national insurance contributions for their workers who are under the age of 21 and who earn less than £813 week (basically all